Hardware Requirements for WaveMe

WaveMe targets a few different applications, some of which require a high level of synchronization between the camera and other hardware. To obtain a rock-solid experience with the phase-shifting module, a dedicated GPU will be an advantage. That said, a dedicated GPU is generally not needed even for this application and the Shack-Hartmann module, will work even with lower-end hardware, although possibly not at highest frame rate set by the image size and bus transfer rate.

For Intel Core i5 (11th gen) and below, a USB3 camera is preferred because it will work out of the box without additional user interaction. A GigE camera can be made to work by allowing the WaveMe process to adjust the priorities of its threads. This is described in more details in how to run WaveMe without a GPU.

As a rule of thumb, most of the processing requirements when not running the phase-shifting module will be related to graphics rendering and an Intel Core i3 with a dedicated GPU will run flawlessly, which is also the case for a Core i7 (13th gen) without a GPU.

When the phase-shifting module is used with a USB3 camera, the rate of measured wavefronts can be pushed above 16 per second which will require at least somewhat modern 6-core processor and a dedicated GPU to keep the pace with the flow of wavefronts to be simultaneusly unwrapped and presented.